Avionics processing systems must run multiple applications in real time in a safety-critical environment (e.g., a partitioned ARINC 653 compatible environment). The size, weight, and power requirements of these avionics systems, as well as their cost, could be significantly reduced by the implementation of multi-core processors. However, sharing network resources in a multi-core (ex.—multi-partitioned) environment presents determinism issues with non-optimal solutions. For example, multiple applications or partitions, each having a different criticality level, may wish to access an external network connection. As the network connection is of limited bandwidth, not every application can access network resources either at once or at will. Furthermore, predetermined data needs may require that some applications or messages require latency guarantees between their origin and destination, or that their access to network resources is restricted to a predetermined level.
Restricting network access to a single core or partition would require expensive applications to be created either to directly access, or not access, the network. Providing a complete network solution for each individual core or partition would require a unique network (e.g., Ethernet) interface for each core or partition as well as certification of each network component on a different operating system, neither of which would be cost-effective. Similarly, implementing a network stack in each core or partition with a shared Ethernet driver would require separate certification of network components on different operating systems and a complex, multi-core-aware, Ethernet driver. Finally, while avoiding multi-core avionics solutions entirely would bypass these deterministic problems, this option would also preclude the size, weight, power, and cost advantages of multicore avionics processing. It may therefore be desirable to implement a multi-core processor architecture capable of interfacing with one or more networks while minimizing complexity and determinism issues.